Hello guys, i am a very beginner php developer (i know only the basics) and i am trying to create a website about betting which will retrieve info from mySql databases. the problem is that i have stored some variables (which are written in greek) in databases and then when the php file retrieve these variables it returns "???????????" instead of the real value.

sorry for my english.

check the images to help you.

stored in mySQL:
http://i56.tinypic.com/inecnq.png

PHP outpout:
http://i52.tinypic.com/rrk0ll.png

if you want further info just post your question! thanks!

Greek unicode collation was already supported in MySql. Change the unicode collation for your table that is using Greek language. Go to your phpMyadmin, and select your database, go to Operations tab and select the appropriate unicode in Collation options. Hope this help.

Member Avatar for diafol

Try:

mysql_query('SET character_set_results=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET names=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET character_set_client=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET character_set_connection=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET character_set_results=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET collation_connection=utf8_general_ci');
	
	$sql = mysql_query(...);

Ensure your page is encoded as UTF-8 as well.

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

You need to save your page as UTF-8 without BOM. Notepad++ will allow you to save in this mode.

Thanks for helping me!

i had already chabged the mySQL Collation to utf-8 general.
but still the same thing happens.

About the charset i use in my page, i previously used greek iso and everything was ok except the problem i came here for.
When i changed the charset to utf-8 everything became "?????????????" and i dont know why......i am so fu@@@ng dumb!

check out the pics

when i use utf-8:http://i56.tinypic.com/2w3b345.jpg
when i use greek iso:http://i54.tinypic.com/2nqsjuo.jpg

p.s. i'll answer your questions (if any) tommorow cause i gotta sleep. its 4am in greece now :D

Member Avatar for diafol

You're not dumb. This is a common problem.

how about changing the collation to: utf8_unicode_ci

can't see that it should make a difference though. Both DB and page MUST be in UTF-8.

setting page to iso-8859-7 (Greek), totally mashes the output for me.


Here's my output (all utf-8):

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />
<title>Untitled Document</title>
</head>

<body>
<?php
$link = mysql_connect('xxx', 'xxx', 'xxx');
if (!$link) {
    die('Not connected : ' . mysql_error());
}
// make foo the current db
$db_selected = mysql_select_db('xxx', $link);
if (!$db_selected) {
    die ('Can\'t use xxx : '. mysql_error());
}
	mysql_query('SET character_set_results=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET names=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET character_set_client=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET character_set_connection=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET character_set_results=utf8');
	mysql_query('SET collation_connection=utf8_unicode_ci');
	
	$sql = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM foo WHERE id=71");
	$d = mysql_fetch_array($sql);
	echo $d['mane3'];

?>
//TRUNCATED

OUTPUT: γεια

(see screenshot of DB)

thank's for all. i created the php file again using the right charset and everything works fine!

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